Read Sleeping Helena for Free Online

She muttered at her sister’s carelessness as she made her way into the kitchen, where Hope was preparing breakfast for them all.
    The kitchen was an immaculate fortress of pots and pans, all hung in a glistening array from stout beams in the ceiling. Thekla had watched Hope peek into the cupboards on the day of their arrival. Hope’s pleasure in finding them stocked with clean dishes, cups, foodstuffs, and a hodge-podge of sundries had been obvious. When she’d checked the pantry, it seemed Hope would faint at the wealth it contained. Thekla’s eyes had narrowed in anger, but even she had to agree that the new freezer was impressive.
    Thekla kissed Helena, who was propped up in her high chair with a pillow, before pouring a cup of steaming black coffee into a sturdy clay mug. Hope dusted her floury hands on her apron and began to set out bowls full of applesauce, eggs, melon, and toast. Thekla smiled her thanks as Helena conversed in burps and squeals with Hope or the tableware or with anything she thought would listen. Breakfast was consumed to the sounds of Hope’s rolling pin thumping on the dough, Helena’s angry chirping, and the clink of Thekla’s fork against a china plate. The others would come in, singly or in pairs, as the morning passed. Thekla was glad for a moment of peace before they did so.
    She had, at last, allowed herself to appreciate the simple joy of being home. She had admired the delicate Persian rugs and the velvet curtains and pushed aside the thought that Kitty herself might have chosen the fabrics. Thekla, with no way to know that Karl had chosen new furnishings and restored the old, had drifted between outrage and enjoyment as she wended through the rooms, down the hallways and up the stairs, returning the home to memory. In the music room, she had shut the door to make sure no one could see her and then sat down, eyes hot with tears. Though it was no longer there, she could still see the old piano in the corner.
    Thekla dabbed at her eyes with a napkin as those same tears threatened again. She glanced at Hope, and was relieved to find her turned away. She would not like to be caught in a moment of raw emotion.
    The piano had been a baby grand. Its ivory keys had called to Thekla from the moment she could reach them. She had been taught to read music, but she’d never needed those straight lines and harsh notations in order to play. As soon as her father had sat her on the bench, her fingers had picked out a tune. Her lessons had started in earnest and continued even during the awful period after Louis died. She’d been a wonder to hear; no human hands should be able to draw such sounds from an instrument.
    When they’d moved to America, the piano had been left behind, put in storage. It would be out of tune by now, she thought, dulled by the passage of time and grown small with age like the rest of them. It had been replaced by a grand piano in the family’s new home, where Thekla had continued her lessons with a different instructor. Playing had been her passion, her healing, and her escape. Her first great performance had been scheduled; she had been billed as a prodigy and assured of a wonderful future. But it was that evening, shortly before the concert was to begin, that their mother had been found dead.
    Kitty should have been there for them, Thekla had thought for the thousandth time, but Kitty had been here, in that filthy coach house, making impossible plans to change the past while avoiding the present entirely.
    Thekla, bound by obligation, had taken over the care of her sisters and never touched a piano again. She had pushed all of her sorrow down into those places it is best kept, in the dark and secret corners of the heart where it troubles no one but itself. Giving Helena her own gift of music had woken it up again.
    Thekla’s thoughts turned again to Kitty, who had thrown obligation to the wind on more than this one occasion. No, there were even older bones to pick with